


Our Brightest Blazes of Gladness

by QueenMaria



Series: Grey-Dawn [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:03:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16933734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenMaria/pseuds/QueenMaria
Summary: "are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks."- Samuel JohnsonAneira finds someone she has known for most of her life, yet never met, during her travels around Skyrim.





	Our Brightest Blazes of Gladness

When speaking with her, it was easy to see where Sylgja had inherited her fiery spirit from. Annekke was a force all her own, strong of mind and body despite her growing years. The red-head swapped stories with Aneira as if they were goods for barter, exchanging each of the Dragonborn’s tales with questions or more of her own.  
It was so pleasant to sit with the older woman and her quiet husband around the fire. The food and mead sat warm in her belly, and her cheeks remained flushed even during the lulls in conversation. The other miners had joined them at one point, Hrefna sitting close to her mother Tormir’s side while Sondas reclined on his elbow. Hrefna was quick to cast off her mother’s restricting arm to ask Aneira questions, begging for details about the caves and ruins she had explored.  
The night passed in laughter, dulling Aneira’s lingering adrenaline over her crime in Riften two days past and her failed rescue at Treva’s watch only yesterday. At least the murderers at Treva’s Watch had deserved their lot, even under the law. Grelod was a burden she would carry in her heart, even as she remained firm in her conviction that, the old woman had needed to go for the sake of the children. Aneira suspected that the weight of that act would stay with her for some time.  
Annekke’s strong laugh broke through her thoughts again, the older woman raising a goblet to start a rendition of Ragnar the Red in her powerful voice. Aneira smiled at her, raising her own drink even if her throat had closed up again too much to let her join in. Roggi had no such qualms, boisterous and jolly in everything he did. His experience at Treva’s Watch had not been pleasant, unaccustomed as he was to fighting, but he was a Nord through and through. Nothing cleansed a Nord’s soul of its pain like a night of carousing in good company. And Roggi, though he might suspect, didn’t have to carry Grelod with him.  
So, Aneira let her mind drift with the laughter and chatter and crackle of the fire, sharing her memories with the crowd and returning Annekke’s bright smile.

 _When Aneira was three years old, she was introduced to her aunt, Anna.  Aunt Anna and her mother had shared a womb, though her mother had said they weren't "matching twins," and Aunt Anna had been born first.  To Aneira's eyes, Aunt Anna was a piece of paper that Mama had received from a courier one day, along with a wrapped piece of orange rock._  
_Aunt Anna had started working in a mine, and had sent Aneira’s mother a sample of the “corndum” ingot. Mama had been excited to show it to Aneira, who had promptly started hitting it on the ground to see what would happen._  
_Sylvi had taken the smooth rock back, explaining that the rock could be used to make steel armor “like Mama wears, Annie.”_  
_That had made very little sense to Aneira at the time. About as much sense as how she had an Aunt that was only a piece of paper. But her mother had been smiling and happy, so Aneira hadn’t given it much thought._

The moon was high in the sky and the fire supplied with fresh wood when Aneira and Roggi rose, intending to lay out their sleeping packs to settle in for the night.  
“Come inside with me a moment,” Annekke spoke from behind her, resting a hand on Aneira’s right shoulder.  
“Alright,” Aneira answered, stifling a yawn as she waved to Roggi to keep going with his bedroll.  
Verner was already in bed when she and Annekke entered the stone house. The redhead strode over to the dresser, easily plucking a small wooden box from the top. She gestured with her free hand toward the wooden table against the wall.  
Aneira took a seat, eyes still drooping a little as she tried to stay awake and not think of all the walking she would have to do come morning.  
“When you first came onto the land, I was only thinking about how exciting it would be to talk with another adventurer.” Aneira blinked slowly, watching as Annekke joined her on the other side of the bench. “And the Dragonborn, no less. Such an incredible fate.”  
Aneira nodded good-naturedly. She was getting very used to the people around her wanting to discuss her newly discovered nature. She hoped this conversation wouldn’t take long, though. Her entire body ached.  
“Your name, though.” Annekke tapped her fingers against the wooden box rhythmically. “Aneira. That’s a strange name. I’ve only ever heard it once before.”  
Aneira hummed, leaning her arms on the table to keep her back straighter. “Aye, I’ve heard. It’s really just a variation of Eira. My mother wanted mine to be unique.”  
“‘Snow,’” Annekke muttered with a smile, “in the old meaning. Really ‘much snow.’” Annekke quirked her lips, worked them in a circle over her teeth. “So, I’m guessing,” she began slowly, “that you were born around the time of a great snow storm.”  
Aneira quirked an eyebrow, watching as the older woman continued to focus on the box. “Mhmm. One of the largest blizzards Bruma had seen in a century. My mother told me she was inspired. It’s why the men and women in the city called me Grey-Dawn. The sky didn’t clear for many days after I was born. It was nearly a week before the city saw the sun again.”  
Annekke nodded along with her explanation, pressing her lips deeply between her teeth as she listened.  
“In Sun’s Dawn?” The question was soft, but the woman sounded certain of the answer.  
Nerves crawled up Aneira’s back, trailing slowly up her spine until she was sitting as stiff as a tree. Annekke looked her in the eyes again, her dark blue staring like she knew something Aneira did not.  
“Aye,” Aneira said carefully. “The 18th of Sun’s Dawn in 177.”  
“That’s right,” Annekke agreed, and Aneira’s brows furrowed at her tone. “On the night the Serpent appeared in the sky, and shared it with the Lover.” Aneira shifted uncomfortably under the table, feet bracing on the stone floor in case an abrupt movement was needed. “The priests predicted that anyone born under such an event was either greatly blessed or greatly cursed.”  
“I know those tales,” Aneira answered, keeping her own voice steady if hushed. “I’ve heard them my whole life. No one in Bruma could even see the stars that night, but the word still spread.” Aneira flexed her jaw. “It was hardly pleasant to be told that by complete strangers.”  
Annekke smiled apologetically, nodding in acknowledgement. “And yet it would appear that there was some truth. In your case, at least.”  
The dark-haired woman inhaled deeply, looking down at her hands again. It was not the first time she had made that connection. “So it would seem.”  
They sat in silence for a few moments, each stretching out as Aneira tried to organize her sleep desperate thoughts. She wasn’t sure what the outspoken and adventurous Annekke wanted from this deep and quiet conversation.

 _Aneira heard from her Aunt Anna again about a year later, when she met her cousin on a new piece of paper. Aunt Anna had given birth to a little girl, and so now Aneira had a cousin. Aneira had never had a cousin before, but apparently her cousin was staying far away with Aunt Anna and wasn’t coming to the house to play with her. But her mother had been crying happy tears, spinning Aneira around in carefree circles while her father smiled at the kitchen table with the letter._  
_“Your name comes from your Aunt, and Aunt Anna has named her daughter Sylgja from my name Sylvi. So, you will always share that together.”_  
_Aneira remembered giggling into her mother’s dark red hair, and asking when her cousin would come to visit her._  
_“Someday,” Sylvi had promised, tapping Aneira’s nose with her finger. “I promise someday we’ll go see them in Skyrim, or have them come see us.”_

“Your mother,” the miner began slowly, reaching out to open the clasp of her box, “would have been sick with worry over it while you were growing up.”  
Aneira looked up at Annekke again, frowning. “She always promised me it would be the blessing, not the curse.” She snorted. “Doesn’t seem like it was that straightforward.”  
“The fate of the dragonborn, of any dragonborn, would be great indeed.” Annekke smiled at her again. “But I’m willing to bet that is little comfort to someone living through it.”  
Aneira’s lips quirked, eyebrows raising in acknowledgement as she turned her own attention to the box. “What’s in there that you want to show me?”  
To the Dragonborn’s trepidation, Annekke inhaled deeply before opening the lid.  
To Aneira’s surprise, it was only a piece of paper pressed and folded one on top of the other.  
She reached out slowly, eyeing the redhead for permission, and took one from the pile.  
It was old, years of handling leaving it yellowed and spotted. It crinkled as she unfolded it.  
The handwriting looped in a deeply familiar swirl. The letter was signed with love, from “Syl”.  
Aneira blinked, mind going momentarily blank before the grief started to build in her chest.  
“You look a great deal like your mother to me,” Annekke began slowly. “I know you’re probably told the opposite, most of the time. You certainly have the Imperial and Breton qualities that Ignacio must have possessed. I never saw him, so it isn’t his likeness I see in you.” Aneira opened her mouth, letting it gape like a fish for a few seconds before closing it again when her throat constricted. Annekke pressed on, reaching out to put a few of the letters on the table. “But Sylvi,” the red-head pressed her fingers against the pages, “had bright blue eyes like yours.”  
Aneira didn’t say anything, watching as the faded black ink from the letters became more visible in the light.

 _Aneira met her Aunt Anna many more times over the years. The letters usually came with a trinket for her mother in the form of a special rock for smithing or flower pressed and preserved. Mama cherished them all, keeping each in a special box in her bedroom and leaving the rocks unused on her dresser unless her armor needed repairs._  
_More than once, Mama had told Aneira that now her twin sister’s love was infused in her armor through the improvements, and that it would make her stronger against any enemy._  
_The young woman was old enough to wonder if such a thing were really possible, especially since Aunt Anna had never come to visit and touch the armor, but her mother had grinned and knocked her fist against the shiny steel plates, and so Aneira didn’t argue._

“When you told me your name, it was startling. Truly, I had only heard it when Sylvi told me what she had named her daughter. She wrote that,” Annekke swallowed loudly, “she’d come up with it the day you were born. To name you after the snow, but also,” the older woman reached into the box, pulling out a letter from close to the bottom, “to include a bit of my name in yours. It was something we’d always promised each other we’d do with our children,” she finished softly. “It’s why I named my baby girl Sylgja.”  
There was a dark-haired woman in Shor’s Stone that Aneira had met; a woman who’d smiled brightly and asked Aneira to take her letters to her mother and father for her; a woman who’d made Aneira think of her mother when given her name.  
“And then you took off your helmet and I got a look at you. It felt for a moment like my sister was staring back at me.”

 _When Aneira’s mother grew ill, she sent a letter to Aunt Anna. Sylvi asked her sister if she could come to see her, and bring Sylgja, so that the dying woman could meet her niece and namesake. They waited for many weeks to hear back, Sylvi growing wearier and wearier as her sickness spread throughout her body. The healers said they were unable to help, that this could not be cut out or treated like a poison with antidotes. All the healers could do was ease her pain and try to slow the process down._  
_Aunt Anna never replied, and so Sylvi had sent another four letters as she grew weaker._  
_Months later her mother began to suffer terrible aches and coughs in her chest, and the healers told them that the sickness had spread to her lungs. Her time, they said quietly, was short._  
_For the first time, Aneira picked up a quill and wrote to Aunt Anna, begging her to come see her mother before it was too late. Aneira promised to shoulder all the costs of the travel if only Aunt Anna would come say goodbye._  
_It was only while her mother lay dying that they received a reply._  
_Aunt Anna wanted to know if everything was alright down south in Bruma, because she hadn’t received a letter from her sister for nearly a year now and was worried._  
_Aneira wanted to find every courier between Bruma and the seas at the far north to demand to know what had happened, and to find whoever had left her mother without her twin at the end._  
_But her mother had listened while her father read the letter, and she’d smiled and cried to know that her sister had not meant to leave their goodbyes unsaid._  
_Sylvi had dictated a reply to Aunt Anna, wishing her family well and praying that they might both see each other again in Sovngarde._  
_Aunt Anna wrote to them again once or twice more, but Aneira could barely read the words now that Mama wasn’t there to smile about them. She and her father buried her mother in the mountains in her love infused armor, and Aunt Anna never came with Aneira’s cousin to see them._

“This,” Aneira swallowed, forcing down the lump in her throat. “After she died. It wasn’t your fault, I know, but it hurt to think of you for a long time after. There were times I wanted to write back, but couldn’t find what to say. Papa was hurting, and I just wanted to be there for him. You just weren’t…” she trailed off, feeling her eyes wet with tears.  
“And I was a coward for not coming to see you both afterward. Verner was terribly ill himself, and I could not leave he and Sylgja. But it was fear that kept me here when I should have gone to comfort you later. Fear of having to face my sister’s grave and my niece’s face after leaving her to die without me.” Her aunt inhaled heavily. “I never got the letters she sent before,” Annekke confessed quietly, and Aneira heard the tears in her voice. She still didn’t look up from her mother’s clean, carefully written words describing her new baby girl. “The only one I received was when she let me know she was about to pass, and that no one could make the trip in time.” There was a pause. “The border was already a nuisance, back then. It’s possible that the courier was searched and the letters taken. I remember,” the redhead mused softly, “that there was an uproar about the Thalmor stealing our letters to search for Talos worshippers back then.”  
A brief slice of rage cut through Aneira at the knowledge, dulled by her fresh grief. The Thalmor, the aggressors in the war that had devastated Cyrodiil, the enemy Delphine suspected might know about the dragons, that might be prolonging Skyrim’s civil war, might also have been the cause of her mother’s emotional turmoil all those years before. Annekke kept talking.  
“But I saved every one she sent that reached me,” she added fervently. “All the way back to the first one she sent me from the war.”  
Staring at the pile, Aneira believed her. Over twenty years of her mother’s thoughts all folded and pressed together. She reached out and pulled the letter toward her, unfolding it so slowly that each flex of the paper was audible.  
They sat there in silence for a long time, allowing Aneira to process this sudden revelation in peace.  
“My father died last spring, so I decided to come see Skyrim. I didn’t really think about trying to find you, when I came north. There was just a calling inside of me to see this land. I wanted to… explore and find my own life to live.”  
“I do not hold anything against you, my dear.” Annekke reached out to wrap her fingers around Aneira’s. Her hands were callused and warm. “I only wanted you to know you have more family, beyond the one you’ve started to create for yourself. And you will always have us, for as long as we all live.”

Sylgja smiled at her with shiny eyes, taking Aneira's hand in a firm grip.  
“How foolish I was. As soon as you told me your name, I should've realized who you were.”  
“Both of us were slow, I suppose,” Aneira laughed. “Your name immediately made me think of my mother, and I didn't realize what that might mean.”  
Sylgja let her head thump against her arm where it stretched across her kitchen table to meet Aneira's. Her body shook a little with her laughter.  
“All these years, and I happened fall in the mines and need someone to deliver my letters just in time for you to arrive.”  
Aneira grinned at the top off her head. “My mother did always promise me that we would meet someday.”  
“Do you have time to stay for a few days?” Sylgja lifted her head again, hastily wiping her tears on the cuff of her sleeve. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”  
The Nord’s face fell as Aneira shook her head. “I’ve got to try to reach High Hrothgar before dawn, so I can get back to Whiterun by tomorrow. There’s,” Aneira trailed off, heading churning briefly with how much might be at stake in the coming weeks, “a great deal I have to do. But,” Aneira squeezed Sylgja’s fingers again, “we could visit each other later. And it-it would be lovely to start writing letters with you.”  
Her cousin smiled beautifully. The shape was reminiscent of Aneira’s newfound red-headed Aunt, of her mother, and of Aneira herself. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> This entire relationship was unplanned when I started creating Aneira's background years ago. But one day I was playing, and ran into Sylgja again. And thought it was funny that the name I'd given Aneira's mother, Sylvi, shared the same few letters as Sylgja, and by pure coincidence Aneira's shared a beginning with Annekke. So this whole thing grew in my mind.
> 
> Hope you liked it! Please leave a review to let me know your thoughts!


End file.
